The Hunter Bride
by jeeno2
Summary: "Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." The Hunger Games meets The Princess Bride. Very, very, very AU.
1. Chapter 1

_a/n: This was written in response to the tumblr Prompts in Panem Challenge, "Other Worlds," in which Everlark writers were invited to place THG characters in another fandom's universe. I chose The Princess Bride. ;)_

_This is the first of two chapters. I have the second one halfway written so there shouldn't be too long of a wait for the rest of this. I hope you enjoy. _

* * *

_Billy was just about to hit a home run on his new X-Box when his mom knocked softly on his bedroom door, disrupting his concentration._

"_Billy?" she said, opening the door a little and peering inside. "Your grandfather's here."_

_Oh, _great_, he thought to himself._

_It's not that Billy didn't love Grandpa, because he did. But being too sick to go to school, yet not too sick to play his X-Box, was definitely one of the best things that had ever happened to him and… well, he just didn't want to waste a minute of it._

_He put these thoughts aside, though, when Grandpa entered the room. _

"_Hey, kiddo," Grandpa said to him kindly, sitting down in the chair at the foot of his bed. "I hear you aren't feeling so well today."_

_Billy shrugged. "Yeah. I had a fever earlier, so Mom kept me home."_

_Grandpa nodded at him. "I'm sorry to hear that." He coughed into a handkerchief and, patting his pocket, said, "I brought you a book today. I thought I could read it to you to cheer you up."_

"_Yeah, sure. That would be great," Billy said, trying to sound enthusiastic._

"_Oh, good," Grandpa said, smiling. "You're really going to like this one. It's full of exciting adventures. And… yes, well, I'll just get started, then." _

_Grandpa pulled out an old, worn book from his shirt pocket, opened it, adjusted his reading glasses and began to read._

* * *

**The Hunter Bride**

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Twelve, there lived a young girl named Katniss. Katniss was very beautiful but, like most everyone else in the land of Twelve, she was also very poor. Because she was so good with her bow, however, she and her family never went hungry.

Katniss went to town every morning to trade her kills for necessary supplies and to conduct her family's business. She always saved the bakery for last, because she so enjoyed tormenting the baker's son who waited on her there.

Every morning Katniss would enter his shop, look into his blue eyes, and demand of him, "Baker boy," (for she had not bothered to learn his name) "do you have my cheese buns?"

And every morning, the baker's son would look back into Katniss' gray eyes and answer her in the same way: "Always."

Day after day, month after month, and year after year, their interactions were always the same. Katniss would demand cheese buns from the baker boy. And the baker boy would, every single morning, give her the bread and the same one word reply.

Until one fateful day, when Katniss realized that when the baker's son told her "always," what he really was saying was, "I love you."

And in that moment, Katniss realized that she loved him, too.

* * *

"_Okay, stop," Billy said, holding up his hands and interrupting Grandpa. "What is this?" he asked. "Where are the exciting adventures?"_

_Billy paused a moment, a look of horror crossing his face._

"_Is this… is this some kind of _crossover fic_?" he demanded._

"_Look, I swear you're gonna like this, all right?" Grandpa insisted. "Just keep your shirt on."_

_Grandpa looked back down at the book, muttering under his breath and clearly frustrated by the interruption. "Now where was I? Oh, yes…"_

* * *

Peeta, Katniss' baker boy, was far too poor to wed. Before he could take Katniss' hand in marriage he would first need to cross mountains, rivers, and deserts to make his fortune in the Capitol.

The day Peeta left, he took Katniss in his arms and kissed her passionately. ("_I don't be_lieve _this," Billy whined.) _Peeta told her that theirs was a true love, and that he would return to her as soon as he could.

But as it happened, Peeta's train was overtaken by the Dread Bandit Hawthorne and his men before reaching its destination. Word reached Katniss a week later that the Dread Bandit Hawthorne had left behind no survivors.

When she heard the news, Katniss took to her bed for a month. She would not eat. She could not sleep.

"I will never love again," she announced to everyone and to no one. And it was the truth.

* * *

Five years after the death of her beloved Peeta, however, Katniss reluctantly agreed to marry the dashing Cato, an émigré from the land of Two and the wealthiest man in Twelve.

Katniss did not really want to marry Cato. She would have gladly pined away for her baker boy until the end of her days. But the land of Twelve had never been known for its progressive attitudes towards unmarried women over a certain age. In the end, even her own mother had insisted she accept Cato's proposal.

Katniss' hands, so to speak, were tied.

Of course, in fairness to Cato, he did seem at least passably charming. And if the gossiping, adoring maids from town had the truth of it, the extent to which Cato was a lovable, sympathetic person was surpassed only by the size of his glorious manhood.

And so, as much as Katniss still pined for her Peeta, even after all this time, she decided that she owed it to her fiancé to at least _try_ and love him.

"Darling," Cato said to her, the morning after she had officially agreed to become his wife. "You must move out of this hovel you share with your family." He gestured dismissively towards the only home she had ever known. "I insist – you _must _move into my home as soon as possible. You will have your own wing all to yourself, and your own servants to cater to your every need."

The thought of employing servants who most likely had been her friends her entire life filled Katniss with revulsion. But what choice did she have? Cato would be her husband, and she could not refuse.

"Yes, my love," she told him.

"Excellent!" Cato exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "I will have your things packed up and moved first thing on the morrow."

* * *

It took four men less than an hour to load up all of Katniss' worldly possessions into Cato's wagon and drive them to his manse on the edge of town. Katniss followed behind the wagon on her new white horse – Cato's engagement present to her – trying not to let her growing melancholy overtake her.

Shortly after midnight on Katniss' second night in her new bedroom – which was, by itself, at least twice as large as her family's home – Katniss was startled from a fitful sleep by a loud rapping on her bedroom window.

_Who could that be?_ She thought to herself in alarm. Being the wealthiest man in Twelve made Cato a target for all manner of thieves and villains, and no one had any honest business with him – or her, for that matter – at this hour.

Katniss tied her dressing gown tightly around herself and opened the window a crack to peer outside and see who the visitor was.

But before she could get a good look at her nighttime guest, a burlap sack was thrown over her head and she was yanked bodily through the window.

"HELP!" Katniss screamed as she struggled, in vain, to free herself; she may as well have been hammering her fists against the side of a mountain for all the impact it was making on the giant man carrying her away. "CATO! PLEASE HELP ME!"

But there was no help forthcoming.

"There is no help forthcoming," a voice to her left confirmed, in a voice so sing-song Katniss could practically see the smirk on the man's face through the sack over her head. He smelled of the sea, fishing nets, and, strangely enough, sugar cubes.

"He's right, my lady," said the very large man who carried her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Your fiancé will not help you."

"It may seem inconceivable to you," chimed in yet another voice, a fair distance away from her but close enough that she could still hear him well enough. "But my lackeys here tell you the truth."

"I NEVER should have opened that window without my bow in hand!" Katniss shrieked. She was furious with Cato for not coming to her rescue, but more than that, she was furious with herself for being so foolish.

"The maid wishes she had her bow?" the man who smelled of sugar cubes asked the man carrying her.

"Now it's time to… watch the show!" exclaimed the man carrying her, happily.

"No more rhymes, I mean it!" shouted the third man.

"Anybody wanna clean it?"

"Oh gods, shut up," moaned Katniss. If she was being kidnapped, she shouldn't also have to endure _this._

She was duly obliged when a blow to her head rendered her unconscious.

* * *

It took the man in black four nights and four days to track her.

And when he found her, she was not alone.

They had taken her – those three men, those men he would soon have to fight, possibly to the death if he had any hope of succeeding in his quest – bound and gagged, straight up the Cliffs of Insanity.

It was said that no man had ever scaled the Cliffs of Insanity – a sheer sheet of rock that shot up three thousand feet into the air – and lived to tell the tale. But these three men had done exactly that, and had taken Katniss along with them. The man in black, therefore, had no choice but to follow.

He was no athlete, of course. But he was strong. And the strength in his body was surpassed only by the strength of his wits.

He knew that he would not fail.

* * *

After a period of many hours, the man in black arrived at the top of the cliffs, breathless. His insides were on fire, his limbs in agony. He was greeted immediately by one of the men he tracked here – a beautiful man with bronze-colored hair and a dazzling smile – sucking, curiously, on a sugar cube.

The man in black looked around him as he tried desperately to catch his breath. But did not see this gentleman's three traveling companions.

"We are quite alone," the bronze-haired man said, confirming what he suspected. "My companions Thresh and Beetee have taken the young lady off a fair distance so that I can dispatch you without distraction."

If that was the case, the man in black thought to himself, he would need to make quick work of the man in front of him if he had any hope of catching up with the others.

The bronze-haired man stepped over to him then and, much to the man in black's surprise, inclined his head and breathed deeply. He shook his head in apparent disappointment.

"You aren't him," the bronze-haired man murmured as if to himself.

Whatever it was the man in black had been expecting at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, it was not this.

"I… don't know what you're talking about," he admitted.

The man with the bronze hair moved away from him and sat down on a nearby rock. "I have been looking for a man for most of my life who reeks of blood and roses."

The man in black lifted his arm and sniffed. He smelled a right mess after the week he had had, naturally. But he smelled nothing like what this other man had just described.

"Sorry," the man in black said, shrugging. "I can't help you with that."

The man with the bronze hair nodded. "I know," he sighed, forlornly. "But perhaps you could help me practice for the fateful day when I do find the man who reeks of blood and roses."

The man with the bronze hair stood, then, and unsheathed his sword without waiting for a response. He pointed it at the man in black.

"Hello," he said. "My name is Finnick Odair. You killed my Annie. Prepare to die."

The man in black smiled and unsheathed his own sword. "Ah," he said, tossing his sword back and forth between his left hand and his right. "Yes. _This_ I can help you with."

* * *

When Katniss came to several hours later, she found herself outdoors, leaning against a rock, and suffering from a horrific headache.

She opened her eyes slowly and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw a masked man in black standing not ten feet away, his back to her as he polished his sword.

Katniss tried to get to her feet but stumbled when she realized that her hands were tied behind her back.

"YOU THERE!" she shouted at the man in black. He whirled to face her. "UNTIE ME THIS INSTANT! If you do not, I can assure you my fiancé will find you and see you hanged for kidnapping me!"

The man in black looked at her for a long moment before speaking.

"Will he, now?" he asked, sneering. "Well, I can assure _you_, my dear, that I was not the one who kidnapped you. In fact, I was the one who rescued you from your kidnappers."

Katniss was dumbfounded. "You… you _rescued_ me?"

The masked man nodded at her. "Yes. And it took some doing, I assure you. A lot of derring-do, a sword-fight, a fairly protracted wrestling match, and a rather silly game of chicken with a short man who thought far too highly of his intellect." He shook his head, apparently remembering. "But, fortunately for us both, the Dread Bandit Hawthorne is not a man to be trifled with."

Katniss' fury flared at his words. If she had had her bow with her, she wouldn't have thought twice about shooting an arrow right through his eye.

"You're… you're the Dread Bandit Hawthorne?" she asked, fists clenching behind her back.

The masked man curtsied, with a flourish. "In the flesh, madam."

"UNTIE ME," she screamed again, struggling against her restraints, "So that I might kill you with my bare hands!"

He laughed at her then. _Laughed at her_! "Now, now, my dear. Is that any way to thank me? I just saved your life, you know. I saved you so that you can scurry on home to your fiancé – to the man you love above all others." His eyes grew hard as he spoke.

Katniss flushed angrily at his words. How dare he presume anything about her!

"I never said I loved him above all others," she corrected him. "And I don't care that you saved my life. Because you killed the man I _truly_ love above all others, and without him, my life is meaningless."

"Ah," said the Dread Bandit Hawthorne. "Did I, now?" He scratched his chin a moment, apparently lost in thought. "I've killed so very many people, you know. Could you describe him for me?"

"His name… was Peeta," she told him, tearfully. "He was the kindest, most beautiful man in the world. He had the bluest eyes you've ever seen and curly blonde hair."

"Peeta, you say?" the Dread Bandit Hawthorne mused, running his hand through his curly blonde hair. "Hmm. You know, now that you mention it, his name does ring a bell. A handsome lad, wasn't he?" he asked, chuckling. "He talked about you a lot, you know. Before I killed him, that is. Said that you were his one true love." He spat at her feet. "It's a good thing he'll never have to know what a lying, faithless woman you truly are…"

"You mock my pain," she yelled at him. "The day you killed my Peeta… I _died_ that day."

"Life is pain, my dear," he replied, frostily. "Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

By this point, Katniss had had more than enough. Through sheer force of will, she snapped through the restraints that bound her and lunged at her captor. "How dare you! I love Peeta. And PEETA LOVED ME!" she screamed before she shoved the man in black down the hill with all her strength.

"AAAAAALLLLLWWWWAAAAAAYYYYYYS SSS!" he cried as he rolled uncontrollably, over and over and over again, down and down and down the hill.

"Oh, no!" Katniss shouted, a sudden burst of realization hitting her. "What have I done? PEETA!"

And Katniss took off running down the hill after him, as gracefully as any gazelle from her years spent hunting in the woods.

She slowed when she finally reached him, lying in a heap by the river.

"Peeta?" she asked nervously as she bent over him.

Peeta rolled over onto his back, wincing slightly at the discomfort his tumble had apparently caused his leg. He looked up at Katniss with his blue eyes.

"Katniss…" he whispered, reaching up to caress her cheek.

She took off his mask – gently, so gently – so she could see all of him clearly.

And there was no doubt. Peeta, her baker boy, had returned to her.

* * *

Katniss had to help Peeta to his feet, and he needed to lean heavily on her arm for support as he walked. But eventually, she got the whole story.

It was true that his train heading to the Capitol was overtaken by the Dread Bandit Hawthorne five years ago. The bit about there being no survivors, however, had been a media fabrication.

"He never kills anyone, Katniss," Peeta assured her. "Not ever."

The Dread Bandit Hawthorne, Peeta told her, was actually just a man named Gale. He had been a hunter and a trapper for many years. "Like you, Katniss," Peeta told her with a shy smile. "Until The Great War broke out fifteen years ago. Gale played some kind of role in that War." Peeta wasn't certain what he did, but people have assumed the worst of Gale ever since.

"It changed him," Peeta said, as they approached the forest lining Twelve's border with the land of Thirteen. "And it cost him the woman he loved. So even though Gale is a good, kind man at core, after years of everyone assuming he is an evil man, one day he decided, 'The hell with it,' and began acting the way everyone expected him to."

Katniss thought this was the saddest thing she'd ever heard, and she said so.

Peeta nodded. "It is sad," he agreed. "But… well, I suppose he's not exactly an angel anymore. No one will give Gale any kind of legitimate work because of his reputation. So, he robs trains." Peeta shrugged. "After all, a man has to eat. And to keep his business going, he occasionally needs to kidnap people like me to work with him." Peeta gave her a weak smile.

"Of course, that means he's caught in a vicious cycle," Peeta mused. "Gale started robbing trains because people think the worst of him. And, people think the worst of him because, in addition to whatever it was he did in the War, now he robs trains, too." Peeta shook his head again.

Katniss' head was spinning.

"Or I should say, Gale _robbed_ trains," Peeta clarified. "Emphasis on the past tense. When he let me go, Gale said he was retiring. He left his business, his name – everything – to me."

"So… when you told me you were the Dread Bandit Hawthorne, that wasn't a lie."

Peeta shook his head. "It wasn't."

Katniss stopped walking and looked up at him. "I don't want you out there robbing trains, Peeta." She leaned up and kissed him for the first time in more than five years. Peeta froze, in shock and gratitude, at the gentle press of her lips to his. "Find a new Dread Bandit Hawthorne. Now that I've got you back, you are staying here in Twelve. With me."

"Always," Peeta whispered back to her, before capturing her mouth in another kiss.

* * *

Peeta tried to appear brave during their walk through the forest. Fearless. Brave _and_ fearless.

But he failed. Utterly.

In truth, although Peeta was very physically fit and strong, he had never been much of an outdoorsman. His time on trains with the original Dread Bandit Hawthorne did nothing to change this.

He did manage to keep his trembling to a minimum, which he took an absurd amount of pride in. But given his need to lean on Katniss' arm for support as they walked, he suspected she noticed anyway.

The problems with forests were manifold, of course. This forest in particular. Peeta avoided it whenever possible back when he was just a baker boy in love with his huntress. There were _bugs_ in this forest, and pits of quicksand and rats and WWUPs ("Wasps With Unusual Properties," is what Katniss called them after one stung his neck.)

Peeta knew full well that if he hadn't been with Katniss, who knew this forest like the back of her hand, he probably would have been killed many times over during their hour-long journey. He is quite certain, at the least, that the quicksand pit he fell into would have swallowed him alive had Katniss not rescued him with a rope she'd fashioned from a vine.

"Give me a giant to wrestle, or even a train to rob, any day over the terrors of nature," Peeta thought to himself bitterly as he slapped, too late, at a hungry mosquito.

* * *

The worst horror of all, however, was lying in wait for them when they emerged from the woods.

As they walked through the last row of trees, they saw Cato, on horseback, flanked by a half-dozen horsed men on either side of him.

He must have tracked the men who kidnapped Katniss and followed them here.

"That man has my bride. SEIZE HIM!" Cato shouted at the top of his lungs, pointing at Peeta.

"NO!" Katniss shrieked, throwing herself in front of her love. "No! You will do nothing to this man. He was the one who saved me from the criminals who abducted me!"

"Katniss—" Cato began.

"I love him, Cato," Katniss told him, boldly. "He is my true love, and I wish to marry him instead of you."

During this interchange, the men surrounding Cato were jumping off their horses and running to Peeta. Several of them grabbed his arms and forced them behind his back.

"Katniss. Step away from him. _Now_," Cato insisted, forcefully, as Peeta struggled against the men trying to restrain him.

Katniss looked at Cato, and then at Peeta, who was now being knocked to the ground and beaten by Cato's ruffians.

She looked Cato in the eye and steeled herself for what she was about to say.

"I will come to you, Cato," she told him. "Under one condition."

"Yes, yes," he said, dismissively. "What is it?"

"This man is the Dread Bandit Hawthorne," she told him. "I will come to you if, but only if, you let him return to the train station. Unharmed."

"Katniss! Wait!" Peeta shouted as he attempted to deflect the blows being leveled against his head. He couldn't let her do this for him. Now that he finally had her back, she couldn't expect him to live without her.

Cato nodded. "Very well." He looked over at his men and shouted, "You heard my fiancée. Let the man go."

Cato's men did as he bid them, leaving Peeta where he lay on the ground.

Cato trotted his horse over to Katniss and swung her up onto his saddle with one arm.

"Coriolanus," Cato said, then, to the elderly gentleman to his right. "Take this man back to… the train station." He lifted one eyebrow suggestively and then turned to glare hostilely at Peeta.

The man called Coriolanus nodded meaningfully at Cato for a long moment, and then bowed his head slightly. "I will, sir. I swear it shall be done."

And without another word, several of Cato's men plucked Peeta off the ground and placed him behind Coriolanus on his horse. Peeta was suddenly overwhelmed by the stench of blood and roses that seemed to roll off the man in waves.

"Katniss…." Peeta began, looking towards his love, heartbreak etched plainly on his face.

"I love you," she told him, tearfully.

Peeta turned to look at Cato, then, just in time to see the look of utter loathing on that man's face.

And then Cato put the spurs to his horse and she was gone.

* * *

_End Part the First_


	2. Chapter 2

a/n

To those of you who've been waiting for a resolution to this story since I posted it back in early October, 2012, I wanted to let you all know that the lovely Baronesskika has graciously helped finish it for me.

I will be posting the first chapter of this story (which is what I wrote in October and what I've already published here) over on AO3 this evening, and will post the next two chapters of the 3-chapter completed story on AO3 tomorrow evening.

I'll be posting the completed story on AO3 rather than here, because this story truly has two authors now, and AO3 allows stories to be listed under multiple authors while FFn does not.

To those of you who have been waiting since October (!), thank you for your patience. And I hope you find it over on AO3 and enjoy the story's conclusion.

Jeeno2


End file.
